How brutal are Wall Street layoffs?

What are your experiences with layoffs at a financial firm? Is it really as brutal as media have portrayed it to be? And once u are laid off how hard is it to get a job in Wall Street within the next 2-3 years? Also, is it true that no one is safe during layoffs?

11 Comments
 

Yes, and it’s embarrassing when they have security escort you to grab your stuff from your desk. If you get called to HR, first go pack up your shit and drop it off at your car, then go to HR.

 

tf? plenty of people in IB have cars, just not first year analysts in NYC.

 

What is brutal about it? If you're getting paid anything real, RSUs are probably a big component of your compensation, which you forfeit upon your voluntary departure from the firm. You get laid-off, generally speaking you keep them. Nobody is black-listed when you're laid-off from a bank. Every shitty Associate and VP I've ever known that has been laid-off has landed somewhere else in fairly short order (usually a tier down). If HR at your interviewing firm calls your old firm, they can't even divulge the details of your departure. The whole thing is a win-win.

 

all jokes aside i heard its very tough to find a job if you get laid off at the director level. Exception is if you were like a rainmaker at Evercore (but then you must have done something very fucked up to get laid off). That's why you see so many former BB MD's/ED's going to like TDBank or Mizuho because they can't find work. 

 

I feel like getting laid off at the ED level rather than the MD level is even worse cus thats like the pre-MD testing rank, and if you get the boot during that, it's kind of like limbo ya know

Dayman?
 

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